Hearts challenge Scotland's football duopoly

When I first became old enough to follow football in the early 1950s, Hearts stood out as a leading Scottish club.

As we enter 2026, there is an unexpected sight in the Scottish Premiership, as Heart of Midlothian sit proudly on top of the table, ahead of the Glasgow giants.

Hearts’ dramatic improvement this season owes a lot to Tony Bloom’s investment in the club in June, when the Brighton owner paid £9.86m for a 29% stake in the club in non-voting shares. This change was overwhelmingly voted through by 98.5% of Foundation Of Hearts (FOH) members.

From an investor’s perspective, Hearts ticked many boxes, as the club is located in a wealthy city, attracting millions of tourists, while it has a of potential on the pitch.

Following the successful completion of Bloom’s investment, Ann Budge announced that the time was right for her to stand down after an 11-year involvement.

The club said that the “poor on pitch performance” had impacted the finances in 2024/25, though it had still delivered a “robust set of accounts”.    This post is based on a summary of analysis by the Swiss Ramble.

As a result, Hearts’ pre-tax loss more than halved from £4.4m to £2.0m. Revenue rose £4.1m (21%) from £20.3m to a club record £24.4m, while they made £1.3m profit on player sales compared to just £5k the previous season.

As always, Hearts benefited from £6.0m donations from benefactors and the Foundation of Hearts, up 9% from the prior year’s £5.5m, while there was also a £1.9m accounting gain from the revaluation of a benefactor loan.  It’s worth noting that the lion’s share of donations still comes from individual benefactors, including Edinburgh philanthropist James Anderson, who was appointed to the Hearts board in July 2021.

All three main revenue streams saw good growth, led by broadcasting, which shot up £2.5m (47%) from £5.6m to £8.1m. In addition, commercial rose £0.9m (10%) from £8.7m to £9.6m, while gate receipts increased £0.8m (12%) from £5.9m to £6.7m.

Hearts’ profit from player sales “very significantly increased” from only £5k to £1.3m.  The largest deal was Alex Cochrane’s move to Birmingham City, which the club described as “one of the standout successes of the player trading model in recent times”, while other important sales were Kye Rowes to DC United and Daniel Oyegoke to Hellas Verona.

Looking at Scotland’s leading clubs over the last five years, we can see that Hearts have a net loss of £2.4m, which was smaller than both Aberdeen £6.3m, who are arguably Hearts’ closest equivalent, and especially Rangers’ £62.3m.

Hearts have made very little money from player sales with only £3.1m profit from this activity in the last five years – and just £5.7m in the last decade. In fact, last season’s £1.3m gain was only the second time that they had generated more than £1m in this period.    On the one hand, this is a good sign, as it shows that Hearts will keep hold of talent, unless a deal makes sense. However, if the club wants to be sustainable without requiring donations, this is an area that requires improvement.

This season’s figures will include the sale of James Penrice to AEK Athens, while there might well be more departures in the January window.

Based on the Swiss Ramble’s model, Hearts received €5.9m UEFA TV money last season after finishing 25th in the new 36-team league stage of the Conference League.   It is little wonder that Bloom has identified European qualification as one of the primary objectives of his investment, as it can make a huge difference to the finances of a Scottish club.

For example, in the last five years Celtic and Rangers earned a hefty €132.8m and €94.2m in UEFA TV money alone, which was miles mother than the other Scottish clubs: Hearts €12.5m, Aberdeen €7.1m and Hibernian €1.7m.

Hearts’ average attendance increased from 18,402 to 18,634, the third highest in Scotland, ahead of Aberdeen 17,777 and local rivals Hibernian 17,157. However, all Scottish clubs are a long way below Celtic 58,809 and Rangers 48,205.

Hearts stadium development in recent years has cost well over £25m, increasing Tynecastle’s capacity to around 20,000 and improving other facilities (hybrid pitch, undersoil heating and supporters bar). The fit-out of the Main Stand was completed in 2023/24, which should help generate an additional £3m a season, according to Budge.

Hearts’ wage bill rose £2.6m (16%) from £16.5m to £19.1m, yet another club record, which means that wages have increased by £7.9m (70%) in the last three years.  Despite the increase, Hearts’ £19.1m wage bill is still only around a quarter of Celtic £74.8m, while Rangers’ £57.8m was more than three times as much.

While it is clear that Celtic and Rangers still have significantly more resources, there is a chance that this long-standing duopoly might face a genuine challenge for the first time in years.